Ethos

The Mayor of Cirencester, Alan Jones and me planting the winning tree in the Cotswold Champion Tree competition.

I believe that good design changes lives for the better. The driving force at the heart of my business is my desire to help make well designed places for living, working and relaxing. I recognise the satisfaction that comes from time spent in a well designed and maintained space. It matters to me that a space connects and fits with the way people want to use it, whether for sitting, socialising or just looking.

My ambition is to make you fall in love with your garden. I aim to make a space that gives you everything you want and to add real value with my experience, skill and creativity. I aspire to give great service, great designs and great results. In all cases I engage my clients in a collaborative dialogue, enabling the end result to have a personal and distinctive quality.

Really listening to what you say about your garden and engaging with you in the design process is very important to my way of working. I get great pleasure from sharing what I know and do, whether it be a consultation or a full garden design and build project. I love to hear happy clients say they can’t believe how much they enjoy their new garden and how inspired they are to re-engage with it. The process of designing your garden is very much about us working together. Working together on your new garden will be a rewarding, and sometimes challenging, process that repays in lasting pleasure, excitement and joy.

How Does the Design Process Work?

No two garden designers work in exactly the same way and it’s important that you chose the designer who best suits how you like to get things done. Commissioning a garden designer will probably lead to a process that takes many months to complete, there are many stages to go through on the way and it can be disorientating if you don’t understand what’s happening or why it’s happening. That’s why it’s so important you chose a designer who you feel comfortable with, someone you can ask awkward questions, someone who listens to you, someone who will design the garden you want.

I’d like to take this opportunity to explain how and why I work in my particular style and hopefully this will help you decide if I’m the right person for your project

The Start of the Process

The first stage may seem too obvious to mention but in fact it’s the most important stage of the whole process. It’s the moment when you finally decide that you need support to change your existing garden into something that fits more comfortably with your needs, wants and likes. Presumably you’re already thinking about it or perhaps you’ve already reached that stage.

Choosing a Designer

So, am I the best garden designer for you? Yes, if you’re looking for someone who actually listens to what you say rather than imposing my own grand scheme onto your garden. Yes, if you want someone who works on a design in a collaborative and inclusive manner. This manner of working is not the quickest or cheapest but it gets the desired results every time, you won’t be disappointed and left with a garden you are desperately unhappy with. Sadly, on several occasions I’ve been commissioned to redesign a newly built garden and start again from scratch. This is a heartbreaking and expensive situation that’s occurred because the original designer gave the client their own interpretation of the brief rather than taking the trouble to listen to the customer. (I always suggest to potential clients that they should interview at least three designers before deciding who to work with).

I believe that by offering a range and choice of ideas, making sure everyone is consulted, informed and happy, you will receive a high quality service which results in a garden that you are truly happy with. My aim is to provide consistent design quality and a high level of customer service, if you haven’t read the testimonials page on this web site you might like to go there now, I’m pleased with what my past customers have been kind enough to say about my service.

I believe it is true that the combination of your initial ideas (however sketchy) and my input will create something above and beyond what can be achieved by a single mind alone.

Seeing It Through

Please don’t think that having your garden designed and built will fit into a neat pre-arranged time scale. At the start of a project it is impossible for me to promise to have your garden designed and built within a specific period, there are just so many unknowns that will only reveal themselves as the project unfolds. The unknowns will take many forms, things such as planning applications, new plants only being available at specific times of the year, landscapers, tree surgeons, electricians, plumbers, carpenters being booked up months in advance, bad weather, your other commitments, time needed to work through the various design ideas; the list goes on and on.

The most important focus is that whatever the hold ups, frustrations and compromises, you will finally get the garden that you wanted.